This invention pertains to a connector which is employed to connect a structural column and a structural beam, such as in a building-frame structure. In particular, it relates to such a connector, and to a clustered arrangement of connectors, employed at the nodal intersection between such a column and such a beam, which, when fastened appropriately to the outside of a column, wraps around one of the outside corners in the column, and when anchored appropriately to the central web in the end of a joining beam, cooperates with a companion connector which is wrapped around another adjacent outside corner in the column to introduce a useful compressive preload between the connector and the associated column. The connector of this invention is designed preferably for corner-weld attachment directly to the outside of a column, and the compressive preload which become uniquely introduced, as just mentioned, during connection of the end of a beam, functions to minimize shear loads which must otherwise be born more directly by the weld interface between the connector and a column.
Those skilled in the art of building frame construction will recognize that numerous approaches have been proposed in the past, and are currently conventionally employed, to interconnect upright columns and horizontally extending beams at the usual nodal interconnections that exist between such columns and beams in a building frame structure, such as the type typically employed in a multi-story building. Such interconnections must function securely to anchor the ends of beams to the outsides of columns, typically, and must be capable of carrying gravity (shear) loads, as well, in many instances, as different kinds of moment loads.
The present invention addresses the issue of providing for such an interconnection utilizing a novel angle-section connector which effectively wraps around the corner on the outside of a column, is corner-welded to a column when properly positioned in place, and, when attached to the central web in the end of a joining I-beam, in cooperation with a next-adjacent companion connector also constructed in accordance with the invention, functions to introduce a useful compressive preload directed from the outside inwardly toward the axis of the associated column, thus, to minimize the requirement that the weld interconnection between a column and connector carry and support any appreciable shear load. Rather, such a shear load, by virtue of employment of the connector of this invention, is dealt with handily through the tight and compressive interface which results, in accordance with the utility of this invention, between the connector of the invention and the outside surface of a column. Securement of a pair of next-adjacent connectors to the central web in a beam takes place through, typically, nut-and-bolt tightening of a pair of cantilevered, spring loadable projecting tabs in the connectors which straddle a beam's central web, and which are drawn, against resistive spring action, into tight contact with this web during tightening of appropriate nut-and-bolt fasteners. It is this cantilever spring resistance, and the elastic deflection which takes place in the mentioned tabs in the connectors which are deflected toward one another and into tight contact with a beam's central web during connection, which results in the mentioned inwardly directed compressive forces developing between a connector made in accordance with this invention and the surface of a column.
These and other features and advantages which are offered and attained by the invention will become more fully apparent as the description which now follows is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.